Xiaomi is a brand that got famous quickly for its smartphones that have good specs. Recently, they officially launched the Redmi 5 Plus, which is a successor to the Redmi 4. This device follows the 18:9 screen aspect ratio trend. Without further ado, here’s our hands-on with the device.

The Redmi 5 Plus has some changes in its design and construction compared to its predecessors. It has an aluminum frame with a glass front with a pre-installed matte screen protector. The white-colored front panel makes the device look sleek and very clean at first glance.

Looking at the front, we can see the 5.99-inch Full HD+ screen display with an 18:9 screen aspect ratio. Above it is where the 5MP front camera, soft-light LED flash, LED notification lights, sensor, and call speaker are located. We noticed that the device doesn’t have capacitive buttons, but have on-screen buttons that maximize the space below the display. Its display quality is decent, vibrant, and has good viewing angles. Under direct sunlight, users won’t have any problems with using it as long as the device’s brightness is at least 80%. One thing that we noticed is that it does not have an adjustment for display sleep settings.

At the left is where the hybrid SIM-card slot is located. You can find the power button and volume keys when you switch to the right side of the device.

The top is where the 3.5mm audio port, noise-canceling microphone, and IR blaster are sitting.

There are 3 components below the device – microphone on the left, micro-USB port in the middle, and the main loudspeaker at the right. We were disappointed that the company didn’t opt for USB Type-C considering that many smartphones have it already. The sound quality of the device is decent and crisp but it’s not that loud to be heard in an open area. Playing videos up to 1080p didn’t cause any problems even on its default media player.

At the back is where the 12MP rear camera, dual-LED flash, and fingerprint scanner are located. Comparing its camera specs to the Redmi 4, the device’s camera resolution and aperture have decreased a bit.

In the hands, the smartphone feels thin and light. Thanks to its aluminum back, it always feels nice and cool to the touch. One good thing about the device is that it’s not a smudge magnet on both the front (thanks to its matte screen protections) and back panels.

A quick test of its 12MP rear camera shows that it can produce images with decent quality and accurate colors. Shooting in low-light, however, is one of its weaknesses as quality degrades with obvious noise.

As for its front camera, the quality is sub-par. The color accuracy is not that good and there is a lot of noise when taking shots. There is also an auto-beautification feature in its front camera since the face of the model was not that detailed.

The Redmi 5 Plus runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat with the latest MIUI 9.2. The installed applications include the standard Google apps, built-in Xiaomi apps, and WPS office. By default, there are no app drawers so users will be able to see all installed applications on the main home screen. We are not yet sure if the touchscreen is a bit buggy because the edges are not that responsive when we tried typing on the keyboard.

The phone is powered by a 2.0GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 with an Adreno 506 GPU, 3GB/4GB RAM, and 21.6GB/32GB of internal storage which is a decent amount. Usual navigations, browsing, and applications executions are snappy and responsive although, we noticed some lags when doing certain tasks such as transferring of files or even playing games.

Upon testing it out in the AnTuTu v7 benchmarking application, it yielded a score of 75,876, which is above average for a mid-range device. This means that users will not have a hard time doing daily-tasks or playing light to moderate graphics games such as Sky Dancer.

The Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus is priced at $190. Stay tuned for our full review in the coming days.